http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
IF GEORGE W. BUSH loses this presidential race, he will be called a
shirker, a smirker, a dummy and a dud. If he wins, he will be called Mr.
President.

You can't get any more simple than that.

If he boots this thing, if he blows a race that he once led by 17 points,
the reaction from his fellow Republicans is likely to be savage.

"How many times are we going to nominate a moderate because we're afraid of
what the media will say if we nominate a real conservative?" a Republican
strategist active in presidential campaigning told me. "What is the historic
argument for continuing to nominate moderate Republicans when conservative
Republicans give us our big victories?"

Bob Dole's loss in 1996 was bad enough. But at least Dole could say he ran
against a popular incumbent president.

What is Bush going to say?

That he ran against a guy who only a few months ago didn't know how to
dress himself?

Bush looks into the abyss and sees the bones of his party's past nominees,
those men, however good and smart and decent, who will always carry the
label of loser.

But he looks across the chasm and sees the promised land. He will not get
there because of Al Gore's mistakes; he knows that now. He will only get
there through his own hard work over this week, culminating in a killer
debate performance, a flawless campaign and a little luck.

Most polls currently have the race tied or Gore ahead narrowly. Where does
Gore's lead come from?

Not just from women, as many thought. According to Gallup, since Labor Day,
Gore has increased his standing among moderate Republicans by 11 percent and
among independents by 26 percent.

But what the future brings is what counts. With Election Day just six weeks
away, there is only one dramatic event left that can change a lot of votes:
The presidential debates, which reach an enormous audience.

Originally, Bush planned on going into the debates with about a five-point
lead in the polls, which meant all he had to do was survive. But now
survival is not going to be enough.

"You have to turn off the TV at the end of debate and have doubts about
who and what Al Gore is and whether you really trust him," said Stu
Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. "Bush must
demonstrate competence and seriousness, and show that he really wants to
become president and has something to accomplish."

Oh. Is that all.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill point out that making up ground on Gore is
difficult because he is a moving, almost twitching, target. Gore knows what
it feels like to be down, and he doesn't want to be there again. It is what
some call creative pessimism and what Gore calls "forward engagement."

Last week, for instance, Gore stood in front of a field of 200,000-gallon
petroleum tanks in southern Maryland and called on President Clinton to
release crude oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help
bring down the costs of home heating oil this winter.

Though Bush immediately attacked Gore for yielding to "public outcr,y"
public outcry is exactly what Gore wants to respond to, especially if it's
the outcry of people facing huge heating bills in critical Rust Belt and
Northern states.

Bush battered away at Gore for being outrageously political and was
probably not surprised when the administration said it liked Gore's idea so
much that it was releasing even more oil than he asked for.

But Gore is not the only opponent Bush faces. Dissent within his own party
grows louder.

"That team in Austin, they have run some great campaigns for governor of
Texas, but this is not governor of Texas," said one Hill Republican. "They
should have been looking for some outside help earlier."

The election is far from over, of course. Bush can and still may win, and
some analysts think it is a good sign he is not farther down than he is.
"I think he can still win," says Rothenberg. "He has had an awful month,
everything has gone wrong, he lost all the advantages he once had, the race
has changed in a way to create a favorable dynamic for Gore, but having said
all that Bush is still probably down by only 4 to 7 points."

Though Bush denounces the "soft bigotry of low expectations" when it comes
to school children, low expectations may be the best thing he has going for
him today.

Should he deliver a powerful, dynamic and knowledgeable debate
performance, the audience is potentially large enough to turn the election
around.

"It's not whether you get knocked down that matters," his campaign manager,
Joe Allbaugh, reminds people. "It's how you pick yourself
up."